ISSN: 1097-3494
DISCOVERIES
South-Central Renaissance Conference News and Notes
Volume 16, Number 2
In This Issue ...
Landscape as an Aspect of
Palladio's Villa Architecture
by Cheryl Mihalko
1 Site: Character and Context
Please You Draw Near:
Prospero's Final Audience
by Flo Keyes
3
Harping on a Lute String
by Hiroyuki Minanzino
5 responds to the physical constraints and op-
Deciphering Ophelia: Preface
to a "Document in Madness"
by Barbara Taylor
7 clines, where hills and plains meet, or over the
Reviews
Debus and Walton: Reading
the Book of Nature
Reviewed by Mark Finlay.
Reinhart: Infinite Boundaries
Reviewed by Dale Priest.
8
Spring 1999
Landscape as an Aspect of
Andrea Palladio's Villa Architecture
Cheryl Mihalko
University of Georgia
A
!though the Renaissance is gen-
:L:l.. ,
erally seen as a cumulative and
simultaneous period in the develop-
ment of art and architecture, in the twentieth
century there exists a tendency to examine the
various aspects of spatial organization in each
.1H....
area of development as distinct from each
"' t. . et :J
other. Consequently, the understanding of
Andrea Palladio's (1508-1580) aesthetic, eco-
logical, and practical strategy for integrating
architecture into the natural and cultural con-
text is not understood as the logical whole he
intended. Landscape design, and architecture
as the building proper, were not viewed as
separate entities in the fifteenth and sixteenth Fig. 1: Palladio sited each villa in
response to tlze site topography.
centuries, but instead the rationalization of
space was a cognitive understanding of the
world.
Topography
Throughout the Quattro Libri dell' Arcl1iteth1ra,
Palladio's 1570 treatise on architecture,
Palladio illustrated each villa as if it were con-
structed on a level plain, and he represented
each one completely without a landscape con-
text. In varying degrees, however, each villa
portunities of the site's topography, solving
functional problems and responding to aes-
thetic criteria. Typically, villas are sited where
a change in land form occurs - on subtle in-
water's edge of rivers and canals. For the most
part, they are located central to their site, pro-
viding the owner with a variety of views, and
when viewed from a distance, the villa appears
dignified. Fig. 2: Most villas include a plaza or
agrarian court on the villa's
To balance the stark architectural form of
dominant far;:ade.
the dominant fa<;ade with the predominantly
flat Veneto landscape, Palladio incorporated
 Spring 1999 Discoveries

Harping on a Lute String

-~

Hiroyuki Minamino
Mission Viejo, California
~
isyphus, a .king of Corinth, was notorious for his most frequently with the lute. It would be interesting to

S cunning and double-dealing during his lifetime. When

he underwent punishment in Hades for his offense, he
was ordered to push a large boulder uphill and place it on
speculate that Shakespeare had John Dowland (called "En-
glish Orpheus" by his contemporaries) in mind when he put
the remark into Benedick's mouth.
the top. It seemed an easy task for Sisyphus, who was after However impressed Shakespeare was by the sound of
all a warrior. But just as he reached the summit, the rock the lute's strings, these very strings caused pains to the
rolled down. Sisyphus tried again and again, but every time lutenists. Until the invention of nylon strings, the ram's gut
the result was the same. was the material used for lute strings. Gut strings were no-
What equals, if not surpasses, this Sisyphean ordeal? toriously easy to slack and break, more so if the humidity
Tuning the lute! was high. Some gut strings were certainly not satisfactory,
An eighteenth-century composer and music theorist due to the underdeveloped technology of the time. No won-·
Johann Mattheson once commented that "if a lutenist lives der there were many instruction manuals that teach how to
to be eighty years old, surely he has spent sixty years tun- choose good strings. One might encounter cartoon-like draw-
ing." This cynic also lamented that "among a hundred ings of the hands of an invisible man holding a bunch of
(especially nonprofessionals), scarcely two are capable of A good Jlryn,;.
tuning accurately." 1 We encounter one such amateur in
Fernando de Rojas' La Celestina. This Spanish novel, pub-
lished in 1499, contains a scene where the lovesick master
commands his servant to sing a song with lute accompani-
ment to console himJ3~ the servant cannot fulfill his master's
wish, since his lute~ out of tune. 2 Imagine how difficult it
would be to tune the lute of the seventeenth or eighteenth A f.illdlryn,;.
century that has many more strings. Indeed, it is a widely
held view that one reason the lute went out of fashion was
the constant addition of strings, which made the tuning and
playing so complicated.
The sixteenth-century lute instructions make the matter
worse. They recommend that the highest string of the lute
must be tuned as high as possible just before it breaks. 3 This strings. They show that the good strings vibrate evenly, while
is an understandable practice, since the strings don't pro- the bad ones vibrate unevenly.
duce good sound when they aren't at their maximum height.
If the lutenist succeeded in tuning his lute after so much
But this gives you a problem. How do you know the precise
trouble, he must have felt quite happy; indeed, the well-tuned
moment when the string will break? Isn't it too late to find
lute was a symbol of peace and harmony. Andrea Alciati' s
out the breaking point just after you break a string? Then
EJ11bleJ11ata contains an emblem of a lute with the inscription
you have to put on a new string and repeat the process-
"Foedera," that is, federation, al!ian~e, or bond. The descrip-
when, again, you may break the string. It seems like an
tion explains the symbolism thus: "Except for the learned, it
endless task.
is difficult to have many strings. If one string cannot tune
"Is it not strange that sheep's guts should hale souls out well (easily done), or the string is broken, not only every
of men's bodies?" Thus Benedick, the young Paduan lord in grace of the instrument is lost but also the splendid music is
Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing 2.3 wonders about ruined." 4 But do not be discouraged even if you break many
the magical power of music. Shakespeare may have been strings, the lutenist was told, for the broken string symbol-
thinking of Orpheus and superimposed the ancient lyra-play- izes the idea of discordia concors. Discord is essential to the
ing on the contemporary lute-playing. Orpheus was a harmony of the cosmos.
legendary Thracian poet whose skill in lyra-playing was such
If lutenists broke so many strings, they must have pur-
that with his music he tamed the wild beasts and moved the
chased many. And if they purchased many strings, a sizable
trees and rocks. In the Renaissance, the ancient lyra was
equated with various stringed instruments of the time, but (See Lute String, page 6)

5
 Discoveries
Lute String (from page 5)
number of lute strings must have been manufactured. Johann
Mattheson comments that "it costs as much in Paris to keep
a lute as it does a horse," for there are troubles with bad
strings, frets, and tuning pegs. Indeed, the string trade was a
profitable business. The entries in a London Port Book for
the years 1567 and 1568, for example, record that 13,848 lute
strings were imported within a period of ten months. 5 But
this economic success story has an unmusical part to it. In
England, money-lenders also bought lute strings and used
them as "commodity," offering, instead of cash, a commod-
ity that they represented as being worth the sum in question.
But in reality, the strings were invariably worth far less and
were almost impossible to convert into cash. If the debtor
wanted to sell his commodities, he had to sell them back to
the lender at a reduced rate. Greene and Lodge's play, A Look-
ing Glass for London, has a scene where a debtor complains to
his lender: He borrowed £40-£10 in cash and £30 in lute
strings. \'\Then he sold the strings, they were valued at only £5.
I suspect that this debtor was not a lutenist . .,.,,,
From the Editor
Phoebe S. Spinrad
The Ohio State University
TJle past year has been an exciting one for Discoveries. With
.1 increased support from The Ohio State University (see
page 14 for a list of the generous agencies and our thanks to
them), we've been able to increase our size and scope, become
a registered and indexed serial, and start appearing not only
in mailboxes but on library shelves-not the least of which
are those belonging to the Library of Congress.
We owe a special debt of thanks to our review editor,
Christopher Baker, who did all the legwork-and voice and
arm and hand work-toward getting us recognized by im-
. portant bibliographies. As of this year, Discoveries will be
listed in the MLA Directon; of Periodicals, and indexed in the
MLA Annual Bibliography and the Music Index.
Weaving Through the Web
Be sure to check in frequently at our SCRC web site, where
webmaster George Klawitter has woven a tapestry of splen-
did (and sometimes raffish) art and important information
about SCRC programs and people. From the main page you
can link to pages about past and future conferences,
Discoveries and Explorations in Renaissance Culture, officers and
membership lists, and other organizations. You can also read
or download the conference program for our 1999 meeting
in Savannah, as well as abstracts of most of the papers on the
program. Or just enjoy the artwork. Visit us at: <http://
www.stedwards.edu/hum/klawitter/scrc.html>.
Spring 1999
Notes
1 Johann Mattheson, Das Neu-Eroffnete Orchestre (Ham-
burg, 1713): 274ff; the relevant passages are translated in
Douglas Alton Smith, "Baron and Weiss contra Mattheson:
In Defense of the Lute," Journal of tlze Lute Society of America 6
(1973): 50-51.
2
The relevant passage is translated in Tes Knighton, "The
a cape/Ia Heresy in Spain: An Inquisition into the Performance
of the cancionero," Early Music 20 (1992): 576.
3 On lute tuning, see Hiroyuki Minamino, "Sixteenth-
Century Lute Treatises with Emphasis on Process and
Techniques of Intabulation" (Ph.D. diss., U of Chicago, 1988):
71-82.
4
The translation is taken from Peter M. Daly and Vir-
ginia W. Callahan, eds. Andreas Alciatus: The Latin Emblems
(Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1985): Emblem 10.
5 See John M. Ward," A Dowland Miscellany," Journal of
tlze Lute Society of America 10 (1977): 116-17.
Jubilee Coming Up!
In 2001, SCRC will celebrate its fiftieth anniversary. Yes, fifty
years of good scholarship and good friends, in the oldest-
and friendliest- professional Renaissance association in
North America. For this golden jubilee, we'll be meeting in
College Station, Texas, hosted by our old stalwarts at Texas
A&M University. (Please note that the adjective "old" refers
to corporate fidelity rather than the chronological status of
individuals!) We urge all SCRC members, especially the" old"
ones, to make a special effort to attend this milestone
(re)convention .
But why wait for the year 2001? Join us this year in
Savannah-see the back page of this issue for details-and
next year in Lafayette, Louisiana, where we'll be hosted by
the University of Southwestern Louisiana. "Old" members
will remember with delight our last meeting in Lafayette, and
we have no doubt that the next one will equal or surpass it.
And Finally ... The Usual Dues Reminder
Check your mailing label for your membership status. If you
aren't a member, or if your membership has expired, use the
handy coupon on the inside back cover of this issue to join or
renew. Do it today! (Well, okay, tomorrow will do.) Don't
miss a single issue of our flagship journal, Explorations in
Renaissance Culture . .,.,,,